


Family

by Eevee10



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Soft Muriel (The Arcana)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:02:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28619226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eevee10/pseuds/Eevee10
Summary: Muriel is experiencing brand new feelings about the Apprentice and he has no idea how to handle them.There's breeding kink if you squint really hard.Events are post-Upright EndingThe Apprentice is referred to with she/her pronouns.Feedback much appreciated! Thank you!
Relationships: Apprentice & Muriel (The Arcana), Apprentice/Muriel (The Arcana), Muriel (The Arcana)/Reader, Muriel (The Arcana)/You
Kudos: 108





	Family

The first time Muriel felt it, they were at the market. He was escorting her on her weekly supply run, not because he enjoyed the colors and smells and sounds of the busy market, but because he had vowed to be by her side always. They were standing next to a stall selling spices, she was bargaining the price of her dried hibiscus, when Muriel registered something tugging on the hem of his cape. He looked around and, upon seeing no-one, he looked down. There he was, a little boy. He had his small fists grasped on his cape, his big eyes shining with tears. He looked lost. Muriel turned towards him, entirely uncertain of what to do next. He felt sympathy for the child, but had no idea neither how to approach him nor what to do to help.  
“Who’s this handsome young man, Muriel?” he heard her voice. She knelt in front of the child and extended a hand.  
“What’s wrong? Are you lost?” she asked. The boy nodded, fresh tears forming clear pearls in his eyes that spilled and rolled down his cheeks.  
“Oh dear. Come here, let’s find your mom” she continued, hoisting the boy into her arms and rising. Muriel observed her while she rocked the child in her arms, smiling, trying to calm him down, and something tugged at his heart, hard enough to make him clench his chest. What had gotten into him? He had to hurry if he wanted to catch up with her, who was now wandering in the crowd looking for the little boy’s mother. 

The second time he felt it, he was deep inside her, their foreheads pressed together, her moans breathed on his lips. He rocked her in his arms, he felt her, incredibly warm and impossibly beautiful. When his name rolled off of her lips, just before he came undone, he felt it again. The tug at his heart, along with the notion, just for a moment, of him staying still right there, of spilling himself inside her, despite their mutual agreement that this was not to happen.  
As quickly as it had occurred to him, he dismissed the thought. Hastingly, he pulled himself out, frantically reaching for the cloth they kept closeby for him to finish into. Before she was able to catch her breath, he pulled his pants on and, stumbling to the door, he escaped barefoot into the night, leaving her behind in their warm, but empty hut.

He returned at the crack of dawn. He could hear her before he entered the hut. Sobbing. His heart ripped to shreds by the sound, he pushed the door open and walked into the cold, dark single room that housed them both. She was laying on his bed, that too-little for him bed that seemed to fit them both perfectly, and which now seemed too big for her single form. She was naked, emerging among his furs and pelts, her skin smooth and perfect like marble. He could see her trembling, from the cold and her weeping. The fire had long died. Quietly, he approached her and knelt next to the bed.  
“Forgive me” he spoke, his voice hoarse from disuse. Her trembling ceased. She slowly rose, sitting on the bed, turned towards him. Whatever was left of his heart crumbled within itself. Her beautiful eyes were red with tears, her face wet, her expression pure pain. And it was all his fault.  
“What did I do, my love? Tell me, please, and I will fix it” she begged. He looked up at her and he felt like a pilgrim, who, after years of wandering the deserts of the world, had finally reached his goddess, only to realize he had failed her.  
“I thought… I wished, last night…” he started, but the words were simply not right. What he had wished for, what he had allowed himself to think was a desecration to her.   
“Muriel…” she whispered  
“Asra once told me that, when two people love each other very much, their love swells and swells until two bodies can’t contain it anymore. So two become three. I didn’t understand it back then, I never thought anyone would love me enough for that. But with you… My heart aches with love. I wish…” he paused, looking away  
“Yes?” she softly urged him  
“I wish for a family with you! A child, a home, all the things I don’t know about. I was robbed of my family. Until recently I thought myself unworthy of love. But you… You gave me love and I want more… I want it all, with you” he finished, breaking into tears himself.  
She softly slid next to him on the floor, dragging a blanket with her and wrapping it around them as best as his big form allowed her. She took his face into her hands, she let him cry into her palms, and when his tears drained, she kissed him.  
“I thought you’d never ask me” she whispered.


End file.
